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AMC’s “The Walking Dead” returned from its winter break last night with a bit of a bloodbath. Was it enough to quell the doubters and rescue the show from a bad season? Does the show have a problem with Carol? And have the writers been binging on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episodes?

Let's dig those mass graves together and find out!

Pointless warning: There shall be spoilers.

“No Way Out” picked up from the mid-season cliffhanger, with Daryl, Abraham and Sasha threatened by a band of Negan's men.

The leader advises Abraham, “When you have to eat (bleep), best not to nibble.”

Meanwhile, back in Alexandria, as Rick and the survivors thread their way through a zombie horde, Sam recalls Carol's threat to him in S5 about the monsters coming for him and eating him.

He losses it.

The walkers devour him.

Children have been casualties on “Walking Dead,” and that only makes sense, given the horrific nature of this world. But this is the most graphic death we’ve ever seen, and no doubt for some, it’s a sight too far.

But if the show wants me to hold Carol responsible for the death of another child, I'm so not having it.

Sam goes down holding the hand of his mom Jessie, who just can't let go.

And Rick, caught in a sweet and weird remembrance of happier days, watches as she is in turn eaten.

This grisly daisy chain leads right back to Carl. He can't shake Jessie.

Maggie and Glenn are reunited, but how long can Glenn's luck last? And will Negan have something to do with changing that?

Given how the show trolled viewers about Glenn's fate earlier in the season, you have to wonder.

Daryl disorients the herd with another rocket launcher blast. The conflagration draw in several walkers, and kudos to everyone involved for the sequence. It's one of the most impressive the show has pulled off.

There's an epic slaughter on the streets: Everyone gets a whack at the zombies, with Rick, Carol, Gabriel, Michonne, Rosita, Tara - even Eugene – Eugene! - joining in the bloodbath.

“No one gets to clock out today, and, hell, this is a story people are going to tell,” Eugene says.

Rick comforts an unconscious Carl. He now believes they can make Alexandria work. His doubts have been put to rest. He saw something in the residents – which is funny, since there are so few left.

'I want to show you the new world, Carl. I want to make it a reality for you. Please, Carl, let me show you.”

And that brings to mind another “Buffy” episode, the S6 finale, “Grave,” in which Buffy tells her sister Dawn, “I don’t want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you.”

Maybe all supernatural shows drink from the same bloody well?

And Carl presses his fingers against his father's hand, a sign of hope after a long night of carnage.